Birmingham German Christmas Market: food hygiene inspections results revealed

Food hygiene inspectors visited Birmingham German Market ahead of it opening to the public.

This year the market features 56 stalls, which are open from 10am to 9pm every day until December 23. Thirty-nine of these sell food and drink and are subject to food hygiene inspections.

There are less stalls at the market than usual this year, due to issues around the pandemic - in 2019, the last time Birmingham hosted the German Christmas Market, there were 80 stalls.

On their first round of inspections council officers failed 17 of the 39 stalls selling food and drink.

A total of 22 passed the inspections the first time. All 17 of those that did fail passed when another round of inspections were held later the same day.

Birmingham’s German Christmas market is an annual tradition which sees people from around the country flock to the city every year to enjoy the festivities, though last year’s event was cancelled over Covid concerns.

What did the council say about the hygiene inspections at the German Christmas Market?

The food stalls that were subject to a visit from environmental health earlier this year showed encouraging results across the board.

“Environmental Health officers visited the 39 stalls selling food and drink products at the Frankfurt Christmas Market on 4 November 2021, before the market opened to the public,” a spokesperson for the council said.

“Of those, 22 stalls passed their inspections on first visit and 14 had minor matters which were cleared when revisited later that day, due to issues around pest proofing, paperwork, allergen information and temperature control.

“Three remaining premises were revisited for allergen labelling / pre-packed for direct sale (PPDS) matters – which is covered by new legislation only applicable in the UK, so some businesses were unprepared.

“These were resolved either by labelling or removing PPDS products from sale.”

How does this year’s German Christmas Market compare to earlier years?

There are around a third fewer stalls at this year’s market than in previous years, with Covid meaning that there are just 56 stalls at this year’s event compared to more than 80 in 2019.

Birmingham’s market was listed as one of the top markets in the world to visit this festive season by the Telegraph, with the council previously estimating that around 5 million people visit the city each year to see the market.

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